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“Divorce,” and Other Words I Wasn’t Allowed to Say by Jennifer Kayrouz | Esse Diem

“You aren’t supposed to see your parents as people. You are always supposed to gaze upon them in their exalted station as safe-keeper to all in their manor. They are not supposed to be the ones who scare the children. I watched my mom stab my dad in the back with a Bic pen over what seemed like folly at the time (she laughs at this now as if it were all an inside joke). I was often so afraid of what miserable disgusted venom might spew out of my dad’s mouth over the smallest of childhood indiscretions that I had almost no fear of what would happen when I really screwed up. They played hard and they fought with equal measure. As I spend time with my seven-year-old self now, I see them as I would see my own peers. The year I turned seven years old, Mom was thirty-five and Dad was thirty-three, both younger than I am as I write this. I see their flaws as people, not as my parents. It has made all of this much easier to swallow now that I know how easy it is for any of us to fall off that cliff. I don’t necessarily blame either of them; I just wish they had been better at hiding it.”